AP File PhotoIt will take more than $7 million in cap space in 2013 for the Detroit Lions to get all nine of its draft picks under contract.

After reading Joel Correy's excellent piece on rookie contracts for the 2013 draft class, we thought we'd project how much cap space the Detroit Lions will need next season to sign their nine draft picks.

It's important to note, the 2013 cap numbers for each rookie will primarily consist of a minimum base salary, which increases from $390,000 to $405,000 this season, and a prorated portion of the player's signing bonus.

As Corey explains, signing bonuses are expected to stay level this season because the growth of minimum salaries has outpaced the growth in the overall salary cap.

Ultimately, a portion of our signing bonus projections may be broken out into future roster bonuses, but those figures would be a negligible to the overall calculations.

Below are our projected contracts, with some minor rounding to simplify the figures:

Ezekiel Ansah -- 4 years, $18.9 million contract with an $11.9 million signing bonus
2013 cap number: $3.38 million